Tibetan and Himalayan Library - THL

The Role of Memorization in the Curriculum

Memorization is the first step in any traditional Tibetan monastic career, and initially it is practiced almost to the
exclusion of other activities. It continues for those monks who wish to pursue higher
monastic studies, for the curriculum is structured around the study of a few basic
texts committed to memory. Unlike studies at modern institutions, which are organized
according to disciplines, scholastic studies are organized around important writings
– the great Indian
treatises (tenjöbstan bcos, śāstra), the root
(tsawartsa ba, mūla) texts... It is the study of
these texts that constitutes the tradition.

These texts are assimilated through commentaries and debates, which themselves are
not memorized. Instead, students memorize the root texts, which are written in short,
mnemonic verses. The commentaries and debates are retained not verbatim but in
relation to the memorized root text. That text provides a nondiscursive template
around which ideas that might otherwise seem disconnected can fall into place,
enabling students to organize explanations and objections. The memorization of a root
text thus contributes not only to the retention of information but also to the
accessibility of the information retained. Psychologists distinguish between free
recall, in which subjects attempt to recall as many random items as possible, and the
cued recall of items organized by rubrics. Their experiments indicate that cued
recall is more effective.10 For the students, the memorization of base texts provides the rubric needed
for cued recall, enabling them to recall topics more easily.

Students are also expected to memorize a certain amount of commentarial material.
Some memorize entire commentaries, amounting to hundreds or even thousands of pages.
These commentaries can provide decisive arguments during a debate. They also supply
models for the students, helping them to gradually assimilate the highly technical
and precise commentarial style and procedures. Nevertheless, learning root texts by
heart is much more important, for sharp students are able to reason persuasively
without quoting texts. Similarly, they can rely on their own understanding to comment
on texts – but only if they have mastered the root text, which provides the structure
according to which knowledge is organized and stored.

This educational process reflects the belief that knowledge needs to be immediately
accessible rather than merely available.11 That is,
scholars must have an active command of the texts that structure the curriculum, not
simply the ability to retrieve information from them. Knowing where bits of
information are stored is not enough: the texts must inform one’s thinking and become
integrated into one’s way of looking at the world. Geshé Rabten emphasizes the importance of an active knowledge based on
memorization, which he contrasts with the approach he observed among his Western
disciples: “Although it was difficult at first, I, like other monks, gradually became
accustomed to it [i.e., recitation], so that both memorization and recitation came
with ease. In the Western academic tradition, note-taking plays a vital role, and
much of one’s knowledge tends to be confined between the covers of one’s textbooks
[or notebooks]. Our corresponding stores of knowledge were held in our mind through
memorization.”12 When texts are held in mind, their
deeper meaning becomes apparent and the knowledge they convey becomes active and
useful. Otherwise, one merely has scattered bits and pieces of information. It is
only through memory that these pieces can be combined to provide actual knowledge.

Hence, memorization cannot be divorced from learning. It enables the monks to fully
assimilate the content of the texts they study. As William Graham explains, “The very act of learning a text ‘by heart’
internalizes the text in a way that familiarity with even an often-read book does
not. Memorization is a particularly intimate appropriation of a text, and the
capacity to quote or recite a text from memory is a spiritual resource that is tapped
automatically in an act of reflection, worship, prayer or moral deliberations.”13 In
the Tibetan scholastic context, as noted above,
quotations can supply effective arguments within a debate; commentaries can be
particularly useful to corner an adversary and demonstrate the mistakes in his
interpretation. It is also significant that some of the memorized texts have
spiritual relevance. But by far the most important role of memorization, especially
of the root texts, is to provide the organizational structure of the whole
curriculum.

The cultivation of memory is central to Tibetan
monasticism in general and scholasticism in particular. As Mary Carruthers has argued in a study of medieval
Europe, reliance on memory is characteristic of traditional
education; modern societies, in contrast, are primarily documentary. Tibetan monks memorize texts in order to internalize their
content, not because of their scarcity. Printing has existed for several centuries
and although texts were not always abundant, they were far from rare. Hence,
memorization is not just the result of material conditions, or the survival of a
practice once dictated by such conditions. The medievalist Jean-Claude Schmitt notes, “Nothing is outlived in a
culture, everything is lived or not. A belief or a rite is not the combination of
residues and of heterogeneous innovations, but experience that has meaning only in
its present cohesion.” 14

[11] For
a distinction between accessibility and availability, see Crowder,
Principles of
Learning and Memory, 11.

[12]
Rabten, The Life and
Teaching, 53. A Sanskrit proverb puts
it this way: “As for knowledge that is in books, it is like money placed in
another’s hand: When the time has come to use it, there is no knowledge, there is
no money.” (quoted in W. A. Graham, Beyond the Written Word: Oral Aspects of Scripture in
the History of Religion, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987,
74).